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Chapter 988: The Withered Seed

“That is… incredibly reckless. Still, Lifre’s not one to bite off more than she can chew, at least not without an escape plan.” I nodded with a long sigh. “Is there any news on the divine gem mines from the fifty-fifth floor?”

Tsubaki thought about that for a moment before responding. “The divine gems are now public knowledge. However, they are considered an extreme luxury good, due to their rarity and the price to create them through the Digital Conversion system. So far, a total of five hundred gems have been found all throughout the floor. Many of them have been stolen from their original discoverer, and only a select few were purchased via normal channels.”

I couldn’t help but raise a brow at that. “I thought that most of the bigger criminals had gone into hiding ever since Olympus appeared?”

“That is true for most worlds. However, they still maintain a level of activity in Fyor. Besides… the item is simply too tempting a target. I personally interrogated one god who had stolen the divine gem. There are many that believe that if they surpass the number of domains possessed by the Greater Pantheon, they will no longer be controlled by them. Thus, the gem is a tempting target for those who have already obtained three domains.”

I let out a low groan at that, shaking my head. Breaking the trinity by adding a fourth domain won’t necessarily make one stronger, it would only give them additional options. Originally, it would weaken their divinity by making it unstable, but the discovery of divine circuits fixed that problem.

Still, the fact remained that more domains did not mean more power. The only way to strictly get more power as a god was either through the accumulation of divinity via the acknowledgement of the people, or by creating more powerful divine abilities, which use that energy. As for accumulating acknowledgement, it would be incredibly difficult for anyone to do so more quickly than the Greater Pantheon.

“The only other thing that I can think of asking is… have Gerard and Ryone made any progress on their magic research?” I glanced over at Tsubaki to ask, who gave a small shrug of her shoulders.

“Yes and no… according to my information, they have successfully created a fifth-tier spell. However, the quality of the spell was worse than many fourth-tier spells that are available. Thus, I hesitate to call it a success.”

I could understand why she made that distinction. After that, Tsubaki directed one of her avatars to begin preparing a meal for the two of us. While I was waiting, the door of the study opened, and Aurivy walked through with a wide grin. “Hey, boss! Ash said you asked about the game, so figured you’d be expecting my visit!”

I gave a small chuckle, nodding my head. “I thought you’d be dropping by soon. Did you bring the seed?”

“Oh, did I!” Aurivy said with a laugh, extending her hand to my desk to deposit not one but two small, silver tokens. I arched a brow, glancing up at Aurivy before looking back down at the tokens. The first of the two had the image of a pool of water on the face, while the other a tall tree. “I thought you’d like to take a look at both, so I went ahead and delivered!”

My eyes widened at the realization of what she brought to me. “How recent was the last withering?” I asked, Aurivy simply chuckling.

“I had Julia accelerate it, so it was just last week. Typically, one tree can last three years, but we cut this last one short so that I could have a more recent seed for you. It has all of our latest mutations and adjustments.” I nodded my head at her words, focusing on the two seeds.

There was a long list of abilities recorded in the seed, many of which were auxiliary abilities such as ‘pet inventory’ or things of that nature. The tree had been through almost three full cycles of accumulating abilities, so it was only natural that they had conducted a lot of research. Though… I was a bit disappointed that the individual seeds were not recorded within the withered seed.

“Are the saved seeds wiped every time you make a new tree?” I asked, to which Aurivy nodded her head in confirmation.

“That’s right. I learned my lesson on that the first time, so I’ve started having the tree produce a copy of every type of seed it has saved whenever we were preparing for a new cycle.”

“I’d hope so.” I chuckled, holding up the Withered Tree token. “Is it possible to change seeds in the future? For instance, if you discover more abilities to research with the tree, and bring another one out later?”

Aurivy grinned at that. “That’s right. Think of it like purging an energy core. I’ve already tested it myself.”

When I heard that, I focused, the Withered Tree token sinking into my hand. “In that case… can I ask you to provide a copy of the different seeds you have in your collection?” I didn’t expect that I would be using most of them, but rather… I wanted to keep it as an option, and a potential way to reward people in the future.

Aurivy gave a quick salute, before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small bag. “I thought you’d probably ask for that. If you absorb one token, you’ll be able to replicate its effects. In order to produce them yourself, you have to absorb three of the same seed.”

I took the pouch with a nod, before my eye twitched. It felt… empty. Though, there was also a prompt in the corner of my view, which expanded my inventory. Off to the side, I now had a ‘container inventory’, which was filled with dozens of different types of tokens. “I didn’t realize that the inventory system had been expanded…”

“Huh? Oh! Yeah, that’s not a proper system thing. Basically, some craftsmen a few years ago found a trick to adjust the ‘metadata’ of an item that they create, tagging it as an inventory object. The created object then only has the basic fifty inventory slots, but money can be spent to enhance it.”

“That’s… convenient.” I nodded my head, beginning to extract three of each token from the pouch to absorb, as well as two Still Mirror tokens. “Can it be applied to any object?”

Aurivy shook her head to deny that question. “Afraid not. Part of the trick is that the item has to be created with the sole purpose of being a ‘container’. If the crafter’s intent during any part of the process is for the item to be used as a weapon or any other purpose, the inventory tag won’t stick. That’s why it’s mostly bags or boxes, but some people have managed to follow the steps with jewelry, since it doesn’t have a defined purpose to begin with.”

I gave a small nod of acknowledgement. “Still, it’s a nice trick.” As I ‘processed’ the tokens she had given me, I saw that Aurivy had a small, playful smile on her face, looking at me almost expectantly. “I know that look… there’s something that I haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, there definitely is.” She confirmed in a playful tone, though wouldn’t tell me what it was. I paused my processing of the tokens, furrowing my brow and sweeping my World Sight throughout my body. For the most part, everything looked normal, until I found the energy core that represented the Withered Tree token that I had just absorbed.

What felt like mutated mana was circulating towards that core, which is about what I expected. After all, I was absorbing those tokens for that purpose. What I did not expect, however, was what the core was releasing. Pure ki and mana, in thin wisps, were radiating from the core, naturally joining my normal energy flow.

When I sensed that, my eyes opened wide, looking at Aurivy. “I thought that just meant that the tree could…”

Aurivy snickered, shaking her head. “It’s a mutation, so it applies to the token as well. A few people have discovered that ‘hack’, so trees that can produce ki and mana are being purposely cultivated and withered, their seeds sold in the real world. Your maximum energy won’t be increased, but it provides a low level of passive recovery. For someone with dietary needs equivalent to the tenth ring or lower, this can handle their daily needs, making it so that they did not need to recover energy by eating or sleeping.”

“They do still need to eat for nutrients, but not to recover their energy. However, for low level martial spirits and other energy bodies, this can completely remove their need to consume food.”

That was honestly more than I was hoping to get out of this seed. Granted, my own needs were near the forty-sixth ring, so this token only provided for a fraction of what I required. I closed my eyes again, focusing. Something like this wouldn’t just create the energy out of nothing, so I needed to figure out where the mana and ki came from.

As my World Sight swept over the core again, I noticed that it was actually natural energy that was continuously pouring into the core. Afterwards, it was converted to mana and ki through a complex network of energy lines. “Is it possible to draw in more natural energy to increase the recovery rate?”

“Yes and no.” Aurivy shook her head. “If you want just one burst of recovery, you can do that. However, doing so fries the energy circuits, and it will take time to repair. If you do too much damage like that, the passive recovery may be entirely lost.”

“And before you ask, we can’t increase the recovery rate of the base seed, either. Actually, this is as fast as the research can get without some insanely rare elemental seeds. Like, we’re talking about being born in the heart of a collapsing star, or upon the death of a black hole.” 

“For the tree, this current recovery amount is more than enough. It’s so little for you because our bodies are small. However, when you put that ability in the body of a massive tree… the daily production of ki and mana is roughly seven hundred thousand points each.”

My eyes briefly widened at that. Seven hundred thousand was roughly double my current mana and ki, meaning that the total energy of the tree would more than make up for my energy needs. Unfortunately, the seed only produced a smaller sample. “I’ll need to go through the full list of abilities in the future, and see if there are any more surprises in store…”